What is IT security?

Companies face many threats from cybercriminals that work to exploit weaknesses in business assets, which is why IT security is so essential. Scammers and hackers that target your data and devices want access to your information and processes, which can disrupt your business and the lives of your customers.

As technology advances, so do the capabilities of hackers, which means a breach of security becomes easier and more costly. These criminals will go after sensitive data (that of your employees and customers), intellectual property, trade secrets, and even target the reputation of the brand by leaking classified information. Plus, nearly every aspect of modern business is now online, from communication and marketing to customer service and financial transactions. This means the consequences of a hacker accessing your network and your online assets can be severe.

With a robust and dedicated IT security system in place, your IT experts can protect your assets, customers, and employees without slowing business. Not only does IT security prevent breaches from happening in the first place, but they also help with incident response so that your online and digital functions are not damaged or down for long. Proper IT security involves both a crew of experts and the right tools and practices that help monitor and manage risks, threats, and actual incidents.

While IT security, information security (InfoSec), and cyber security all sound close and are related, there are key differences between them all.

InfoSec is more focused on the processes and tools that are created to protect sensitive information from being breached. IT security is more centered on protecting digital data, specifically through computer network security. Essentially, the difference between the two comes down to what form the data is stored in and how it is protected.

Then we have cybersecurity, which, compared to the broad “IT security” term, is a more focused aspect of security that prioritizes authorization practices and protection. Unauthorized use of electronic data is a huge problem with businesses that function online, so cybersecurity works to protect internet-based systems from cyber threats that compromise authorization access. This protection extends to hardware, software, and data.

IT security is a general term that has a lot of layers and focal points, which we can break down into the following categories.

One of the primary security types is network security, which safeguards networks from unauthorized or malicious users. When hackers can access a network, they can also access the data that network is connected to. Aside from the data that is at risk, a compromised network also means that authorized users may not have the same secure access to the network, which frustrates your company’s processes. By protecting the network from misuse or unauthorized modification, you are protecting the integrity, usability, and reliability of that network and consequently, your business.

We send and receive data over the internet constantly, both in our personal lives and in every industry. This means that the internet is a prime target for hackers when they can access your information through web-based applications and browsers, which is what internet security works to prevent. This type of IT security monitors incoming internet traffic for malicious software by using firewalls, antimalware, antispyware, and similar software.

Devices are an essential part of your business infrastructure in today’s world, but each device is also an endpoint that connects to a much larger network. Endpoint security is designed to fortify devices like cell phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers and prevent those devices from accessing malicious networks that put your data or organization at risk. This comes in the form of malware protection software and device management software.

The internet has paved the way to even more advanced connectivity technologies, including the cloud, which has made cloud safeguarding an important addition to IT security. Cloud security includes applications, data, and identities that are moved to the cloud and directly connected to the internet.

These cloud functions are not protected by computer-based security and instead require security solutions for cloud-based environments, especially for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications found in the public cloud. IT teams use cloud-access security broker (CASB), secure internet gateway (SIG), and cloud-based unified threat management (UTM) technology to round out their cloud security.

Finally, we have application security, which has far more to do with coding than the other types of security. Because applications are coded at the time of their creation, that code needs to be coded with the best security possible to avoid attacks and identify vulnerabilities that may exist in the software.